dancing on the edge
by xenovia
Summary: you'll never escape me. [kuromary]


His long, bony fingers thread through her silken white hair, gleaming yellow eyes staring adoringly at the squirming figure of the medusa. His other arm was wrapped around her small waist, holding her against his form and minimizing her escape opportunities. She shudders with sobs and whimpers but she knows she can't escape and trembles within his cold, bloodied arms, tainted by blood of her own dear friends splattered all over his clothing and hands and face.

Their bodies litter the black ground of the haze, every single one lying in their own pool of vermilion blood and salty tears. He can see their still silhouettes, their stained hoodies and mangled corpses and bled-out wounds and gaping mouths, and it fills his heart with a seeping, twisted joy. How many times had he gone through this? How many times had he subjected sweet, sweet little Mary to this beautiful torture? He'd lost count long ago, but he knew it was a number that was so much greater than he'd ever thought.

"Oh, Mary," he whispers hauntingly, offering a crooked smile when she jumps at her name and releases another low, weak cry. "You play victim so very nicely." She sniffles and shifts uncomfortably, her ribcage colliding with the inner flesh of his covered arm and her feet attempting to push Kuroha's away. She dangles within his tight, constricting hold, wrapped within her own fluffy hair and the few stray snakes that slithered over her and circled both Mary's and Kuroha's arms, hissing and flickering their tongues about. It only makes Mary shiver more. It only brings Kuroha more pleasure.

She doesn't respond, instead taking to lifting her hands and trying to pry his arm away from her waist. Her crescent-shaped nails dig into his pale, dirtied skin, tearing away at hardened flesh and desperately attempting to draw blood.

"I think even I would be content playing this game for all eternity," he sighs, twisting a strand of her white-blonde hair between his fingers and yanking at it, grinning once she squealed and shrieked in pain. "It's so amusing. The looks on their faces before I shoot them are my favorite things to look back on." He pauses. "Oh, remember the time I strangled your precious _Seto _right before you? You screamed and cried like a helpless little piglet, ripe and ready for slaughter." She let out an audible choking sound, noises twisting and lumping in her throat.

"Then there was Momo…I broke her arms, didn't I? She was shielding you, hiding you from me, and she got the punishment dealt to her." Mary gritted her teeth as he continued counting over the more memorable murders he had stored in his memory.

"Shintaro - he died trying to keep me from committing suicide, didn't he? All I wanted to do was reach for Ayano once," Kuroha murmured. "And Hibiya, it's always enjoyable to give him the same death as that girl he was enamored with. What was her name again? It appears to have slipped my mind." He chuckles darkly while she continues to shake, tears cascading down her pallid face and dripping down onto his feet and onto the ground.

"Ene, that girl…I can't get very creative with her, and that's disappointing. Haruka's thoughts still remain implanted in my mind, and yet I can't force true, excruciating pain on her…"

"Stop," Mary mumbles shakily, fingers falling limp on his arm. Her teeth clamp down onto her lip and drag across them, holding in a storm of cries. Kuroha arches an eyebrow, a hint of a smile reaching his face.

"Oh, you're going to abandon that silent treatment punishment? I'm glad to hear it."

"I said _stop,"_ she mutters, her voice wavering. The tips of her toes - the front of her brown ankle-boots - nudge harshly at his thighs and shins. "Stop talking. Stop…"

"Stop breathing?" He chortles and tilts his head to the side, placing his face against her neck and humming quietly. "I don't need to breathe. I'm an android, remember?" He tightens his grip on her. "I'm _better _than Konoha _and_ Haruka."

"I…" Mary inhales, trembling, and her legs fall still.

"But you knew that all along, didn't you?" Kuroha nuzzles her, black locks brushing against her greatly contrasting silvery ones. "You always pay more heed in this form than the others…If I didn't know any better, I'd think you actually _enjoy _me slaughtering those pitiful sheep before you, time and time and time and time - "

"_Stop!_" she shrieks at the top of her lungs, followed by an ear-splitting yelp and display of strength as the soles of her shoes slammed into Kuroha's legs. She wrenches herself out of Kuroha's grip and topples to the floor, coughing and lifting her face to glare viciously at him with bright, piercing red eyes. He simply gazes down in amusement at her, straightening the folds in his bloodied shirt.

"Fierce," he comments. "It's taken you this long to change, huh? Interesting." She growls at him, curling her lip, and scrambles back up onto her feet, backing as far away from him as she can. He advances forward anyway, taking slow and steady strides in her direction as she attempted to escape him.

"Shut up," Mary snarls, clutching the skirts of her bloodstained blue dress, appearing as menacing as possible with slanted red eyes and a curled lip. "I won't give you what you want. _Stop._" He stifles a dry laugh and stops abruptly, watching as the medusa rapidly changed personalities. She'd never done this before in any of the prior loops - she'd remained her placid, sickeningly sweet self, crying over the corpses of her friends yet refusing to make a happier world for them. It puzzled him so much, but it intrigued him. She grew more and more interesting with every reset. She grew more and more _endearing _with every reset. And so, she only pushed herself farther and farther into the corner. He was bound to catch her soon.

"You never listen to my orders," Kuroha chuckles, running a hand through his ebony hair. "All you have to do is slip up a bit of your true power…and all your problems will be fixed." He raises his arms out to his sides and tilts his head, shooting her a smile. She only continues glowering at him, eyes glowing in the eternal darkness.

"Or," he begins, tapping his foot on the ground, "you could kill me and get it over with." Mary's eyes widen at this, and he lets loose a loud bark, a loud, mocking howl at her expression.

"Either way, you'll lose, won't you?" he whispers, bending down onto his knees and softening his eyes. "You'll lose _me _in both ends. That's why you always insist on restarting, isn't it? So you don't ever have to lose sight of me."

"I'm warning you," she hisses, "back off." The snakes coiling around Kuroha's arm hiss at her, watching as her hair began moving in that odd way it often did.

"My queen," he whispers, remaining in his crouched position, "you know you can't escape me. Ever." He shoots forward at her, pinning her to the ground and watching amusedly as she struggled to get out of his grip.

"And here I thought you'd given up long ago…" he mutters, stroking the side of her soft face. _She looks just about ready to kill me. _"And yet, your fire's still burning strong…" He laughs. "I'm glad to see that." The boy cranes his neck forward and scrapes his teeth across the fragile flesh of her neck, and the medusa growls furiously. He continues either way until he meets her tight, pale pink lips and attempts to claim them as his own. It's then that she lashes out.

She kicks him with as much force as she can and she louts of bloodcurdling screeches as she grips her head and trembles in utter pain as slowly and painfully her hair takes on snake-like appearances and blood drips to the floor. Kuroha watches in astonishment, doing nothing as white snakes emerged from the girl's head. _Medusa. _

"I won't…" Her voice sounds like a million others echoing after her; a symphony of venomous honey. "…Give you what you want." Her eyes are an even more ferocious crimson. The next part is all too familiar for Kuroha, and he can only crack a halfhearted smile.

The same painful feeling rushes throughout his body, as if he was being torn apart in a billion tiny little screaming pieces. The world around him blurs and he sees only Mary standing before him, face darkened and surrounded by hissing white snakes with eyes that pierce through his artificial soul.

_She hasn't changed, _he thinks, vision falling to black as the world fades away and everything is reset again, just like always. _She can try and change her ways, her looks, her personality, but she'll never ever change. _Almost everything is gone. _She'll never ever escape __**me. **_

He grins once more and he grins wider. _I've got you now. You've backed yourself into a corner long, long ago. _

The last look she shoots him in this loop is of pure hatred, venom practically seeping from her scarlet eyes and stabbing deep into Kuroha's nonexistent heart.

_You'll always be __**mine. Mine mine mine mine mine.**_

The cycle repeats.


End file.
